China Teams With Boeing to Increase Aircraft Production

Several recent developments show that China is becoming much more involved in the production of commercial aircraft, including new aluminum alloys for use in such large planes as Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing recently signed a collaboration agreement with Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) in several areas for enabling commercial aviation industry growth in China. The companies will collaborate with Chinese universities and research institutions to expand knowledge of sustainable aviation biofuels, aviation connectivity infrastructure, and other areas, to improve energy efficiency or reduce carbon emissions in commercial aviation. Each research project will be jointly selected and funded.

China is increasing manufacturing of large aircraft and of aluminum-lithium alloys for use in the airframe structures of large planes, such as Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, shown here landing in Mexico City for the first time on March 7, 2012. (Source: Boeing)

Part of the agreement includes the creation of the Boeing-COMAC Aviation Energy Conservation and Emissions Reductions Technology Center in Beijing. Funded by both companies, the center will support research projects to increase the fuel efficiency of commercial aircraft and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Our hope is that innovative emissions-reduction technologies developed through the Boeing-COMAC Center will advance aviation in China and around the world," said Marc Allen, president of Boeing China, in a press release.

China is considered to be one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets. The country's Civil Aviation Administration has forecast that passenger traffic in China in 2012 will exceed 300 million, and reach 1.5 billion in 2030. Boeing has estimated that Chinese airlines will need to buy 5,000 new airplanes by 2030 to meet this demand.

@naperlou: I agree that the main motivation for Boeing and Bombardier to do this is to help them sell aircraft in China. What's wrong with that? As I pointed out, this may help create jobs in the U.S. and Canada.

As to R&D, I don't think anyone would argue that U.S. doctors are somehow impeded in looking for a cure for cancer if Chinese doctors are also looking for one. Why should it be any different when it comes to trying to find ways to make air transportation more fuel efficient?

When it comes to Chinese materials, I've definitely seen off-spec materials from China. But I've also seen off-spec materials from the U.S. If you buy the cheapest materials you can find, no matter what country they come from, you shouldn't expect the highest quality. The bottom of the barrel is the bottom of the barrel. But it would be a faulty generalization to say that all Chinese materials are low-quality. It would be more correct to say that you get what you pay for.

@Dave Plamer: The main reason to do this type of thing in China is to get preference for our compnaies, like Boeing, in China. If a company like Boeing, with its vast number of engineers and scientists, needs R&D help, then we are in trouble. Perhaps we are made stronger in the long run becuase of our flexibilty as a country, but we often suffer dislocations in the short run.

I am a little leary of materials from China. I talked to one guy who got ball bearings from China (through a distributor) which were not hard enough. They wore out quickly. This lost him at least one customer. In another instance, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has $1.1 Billion worth of trains that they cannot use. They were built by Bombardier who got some of the structural steel from China. It does not meet spec. In fact, it is dangereous. Fortunately it was found in acceptance testing, not operation. I have seen lots of other examples recently. That is why I would be leary of having Chinese materials in an airliner.

That's a good point, Dave. A collaboration with China doesn't necessarily mean there will be negative blow-back in the U.S. A U.S. company like Boeing could be the beneficiary of R&D from China. I would imagzine there is some significant gain or Beoing would not have entered into the deal.

Dave, I agree that advancing knowledge and technology is in the interests of all, at least in theory. I think it stops being in everyone's interest when we start looking at who controls what. I also don't think this is just a "shoe's on the other foot" situation in terms of comparing what China's doing now to anything we've done in the past and how unfair or wrong that may have been. The thing is, we're now in a vastly shrunken world in terms of the entanglement of everyone in everyone else's economy and how everyone's economy and technology decisions affect everyone else's. (Interesting that you mentioned Alcoa--they seemed to have had a potential aluminum-lithium deal going with COMAC for a few years and then all mention of it disappears sometime in 2011).

@Ann: I'm with you when it comes to companies sending manufacturing jobs to China in order to take advantage of low labor costs. And I agree that the practices of many Chinese companies are deplorable -- although maybe not too different from the practices of many U.S. companies during our own period of rapid industrialization in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But this article is not really about that.

Bombardier seems to see its collaboration with COMAC as a way to generate orders for its CSeries aircraft, which so far it has had a hard time selling. If Bombardier is successful in getting the CSeries into the Chinese domestic air travel market, this would almost certainly create jobs in Quebec and Northern Ireland, where the CSeries is built. It would presumably also create jobs in Pennsylvania and Indiana, where Alcoa makes the aluminum-lithium alloys which are used in the CSeries.

I suspect that Boeing has similar goals in its collaboration with COMAC, although their collaboration seems to be more focused on basic research.

Clearly, companies are in business to make money, not to advance national interests. (Which, in Bombardier's case, would be Canadian interests, not U.S. interests). But, in this case, I think advancing knowledge and technology is in everyone's interest.

Dave, I agree that the world doesn't revolve around the US anymore--that's getting truer all the time. But that said, for those of us in the US, we do have valid concerns about keeping our IP under our control. We also have valid concerns about Chinese manufacturing quality-- not just what they can do but what they do do--and shipping yet more of our jobs overseas, especially high-paid ones. Like sensor pro, I am very wary of so-called global collaboration: companies like Boeing may benefit from it, but citizens--aka workers--in the US so far have not.

@sensorpro: The article doesn't say that the 787 will be partially made or developed in China. The article mentions that one of the areas of collaboration is lightweight alloys, and the 787 is given as an example of a Boeing aircraft where lightweight alloys are used.

By all means, let's have more R&D in the U.S. But that doesn't mean that companies shouldn't do R&D in China also. It's entirely possible that some of the technologies developed at the Boeing-COMAC center may eventually create jobs in the U.S.

My point had nothing to do with who works on Aluminum or anything else for that affect. We are too open with out technology. What I'm saying is that our govenment created over 15% unemployment, basically crippled NASA, has engineers working in landscaping, while California purchases Billions of steel from China. Parts of planes are made in China and Korea. Eight or six solar power companies are chapter 11 due to missmanagement, fraud and due to unreasonably low panel prices from China.

And now we are "happy" that 787 will be partially made or developed in China.

Did I miss anything?!

Take that money and hire our guys and develop it inhouse. Am I wrong ?

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